Onelife, formerly Sports and Health, allows college student to use the facility on a monthly basis without long term contract. My kids attend UVA and they are home for the holiday in December so they just use Onelife for 30 days and head back to school after that. One month membership is about $80 for 30 days.

Lifetime also has something similar.

Are you close to a county rec facility with a good gym? Even some pools like MLK have equipment, if all you need is a treadmill and a set of weights. But I’ve heard the new one in Wheaton is really good, and I know there are others throughout the county.

I bet you could find something that would be fine for a few months, assuming they really do just want a place to work out, as opposed to the whole gym social scene.

Talk to your gym. They probably offer a short term or summer membership even if they don't advertise it. Probably at a higher monthly fee but it will be cheaper overall.

Planet Fitness made it SO difficult for me to get out of my contract with them when I moved somewhere that was 18 miles from the nearest PF location. I would never sign up with them again, especially for a membership that needed flexibility.

Pretty sure that at Planet Fitness you can just quit your membership and then join up again over the break. the annual fee is good for a whole year, so you don't have to pay that again if it is still in effect, but you don't have to pay the monthly if you quit. I am not sure about the join fee--right now it's a dollar (different than the annual fee).

Lifetime lets me turn my college kids on and off on our account.
Planet Fitness might be a good option too. I have also heard many college kids don't like the school gym. For some big state schools it might be too far or they are too crowded, so they do Planet Fitness at school if more convenient to dorm/Apt.

DC is heading to an OOS college next month. DC will use the on-campus facilities at school but wants to work out at their gym here at home on breaks (mainly winter and summer). But we’re not keen to pay for another year of membership with that limited use and the gym caps the number of months the membership can be inactive. What have others done? Short term memberships (if so, which gym offers that)? Or if your DC’s gym allows enough inactive periods to cover the schools year which gym is it? We’re in MoCo.